Friday, May 27, 2011

Inheritance


The whole thing about inheritances is that they increase. Investments are made and the small offering of one man can become a fortune for his children. Its all rather confusing to me, the facts and figures, but I do know that one way or another money begets money if it is invested wisely. And likewise, I know that when you plant one something in the ground, it produces the seeds for hundreds of somethings. It is a concept so close to the Fathers heart. He dreamed it up. He speaks of it relentlessly. It points to His kingdom. He just really likes for things to increase, and he likes to give things away that we have neither earned, nor do we deserve. Its topsy-turvy, upside-down, and completely, dazzlingly wonderful.

And I am lucky enough to have gotten a real live taste of this on earth, a dad who's love still baffles me by its undeserved unconditional-ness. A dad who would drop everything to look for my missing sock and whistle about it while I raged about the house like a thunder storm. A dad who took great pleasure in saving everything to take us on extravagant, adventurous vacations when in everyday life we didn't have two nickels to to rub together. A dad who was patient and present. A dad who has fathered not only me and my three brothers, but hundreds and hundreds of the most dejected and outcast of this world. A dad who for no apparent reason was proud to have me as a daughter. (And trust me, there were years when there was absolutely no apparent reason.)

But back to inheritance: What my (formerly) hippy, buddhist dad invested one summer evening while driving through the fields of Vermont was himself, into the heart Jesus. A flock of birds took off with it to the heavens and there it lives, gaining significant interest daily. And here I am, the beneficiary, rich beyond my wildest dreams, swimming around in an absolutely limitless fortune. My earthly treasures may be meager, but I have inherited the entire Kingdom of Heaven, and this is more real to me than the very ground I stand on. So, I think its pretty safe to say that I don't need no trust fund. I believe this will do just fine. Thanks dad. And by the grace of God I will invest it as generously, selflessly, and creatively as you have, and my children will run positively wild with the freedom.

Happy Fathers Day! I love you!

"I, however, followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, 'The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly." Joshua 14:8-9





Friday, May 13, 2011

Yes, I would like to be a river.

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Thursday, May 5, 2011

My Mom's Hands


Sometimes I look down at my hands and see my moms. Its strange and comforting. Her hands are so deeply familiar, her fingers, the shape of her nail beds, the simple gold hand-forged wedding band. I have watched them knead dough, cut out paper dolls, and turn the pages of Little Women as I lay in bed with her as a child. Hundreds of times I have watched them roll out her famous crust for the best apple pie in the world. I have watched them shuffle scrabble letters, take a whack with a wooden spoon, fold in prayer, and write sermons. I have seen them waving down the street in the ghetto of Milwaukee as she chased down the kids who stole my brothers bike out from under him. (They dropped it and ran by the way.) I have seen them make dinner for a house full of inner city teenagers and teach lonely international housewives how to make apple sauce. They are truly remarkable hands.

My mom and I don't look anything alike. In fact, we are nothing alike. She has dark straight hair and mine is blond and untamable. She's pragmatic and I'm romantic. She lives fully in the moment and I'm a bit of a dreamer. We can not recognize anything of ourselves in the other and have sufficiently wounded eachother in trying. But I have her hands, and I am thankful. Our hands move quickly and efficiently and I look down and I know who I am. And I am so thankful that we should walk this side of heaven together as mother and daughter, sisters, and friends, forming and sharpening each other into the likeness of our Creator. "And he saw that it was good."

I love my mom's hands.